Hillary as diversion.

I know that I have no choice. Given the Newsweek cover--"Saint or Sinner?"--the "bombshell" David Watkins memo portraying Hillary Rodham Clinton as Medusa, the President's threat to pop William Safire in the schnoz, the grand-jury testimony, and the apoplexy about all this by our favorite pundits, I have to deal with the latest episode in one of the Republicans'--and hence the media's--favorite parlor games: pin the crime on the First Lady.

But before I get to this, allow me to share with you a truly bizarre and revealing moment in the land of punditry, in case you were doing something constructive (like your laundry) instead of watching these bozos. On The McLaughlin Group, the host began fulminating about the various apocalypses that will result from Hawaii's legalization of gay marriage. To emphasize the preposterousness of such a move, he spontaneously asked Fred Barnes who he would want to marry if he were gay. Morton Kondracke, perhaps? Paul Gigot? (How was Michael Barone overlooked?) Boy, was this a knee-slapper, punctuated by overly forced guffaws, darting glances, and seat-squirming so characteristic of those who doth protest too much. (For the record, Barnes chose John Kasich.) What was it again that Freud said about jokes?

But back to Hillary. I must confess that my enthusiasm for this topic has reached a new nadir. I don't care about her role in Les Grandes Trailers, or whatever the latest alleged real-estate scam in the swamps of Arkansas was called. I don't want to read her book, since Katha Pollitt has already convinced me that it's saccharine, dumb, and hypocritical.

But John McLaughlin's shamelessly distorted account of "travelgate" (when will we ever be rid of this moronic suffix?) must be addressed. McLaughlin portrayed Billy Dale, the head of the travel office who was acquitted of embezzlement charges, as a figure akin to Dickens's Tiny Tim. McLaughlin described Dale and his colleagues, many of whom were Reagan and Bush appointees, as "dedicated, non-political, respected employees" victimized by the White House's "phony" charges of embezzlement. We then heard a lot about how Hillary's cavalier actions--taken only because she wanted to give these jobs to her friends--wrecked poor Billy Dale's life, since he was, after all, "found innocent."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As any dope knows from the O.J. case, acquittal and innocence are two very different things. Dale was indeed acquitted. Yet the perception remains that the desire to fire some of these guys was itself criminal.

The news frame nearly everyone has adopted here focuses on whether Mrs. Clinton misrepresented herself--even lied--about her attention to such White House details and about how much work she did as a corporate attorney. This is what we've been urged to focus on over the past month--Mrs. Clinton's credibility. What a sideshow!

We have two smokescreens here. The Republicans are trying to use Mrs. Clinton to divert attention from their increasingly unpopular slash-and-burn legislative agenda. And the White House is trying to use It Takes a Village to pretend that they're going to protect the increasingly endangered children of America. In neither case do I find Hillary-as-diversion (especially in those unspeakable plaid suits) compelling.

And, of course, it is already a cliche, given the pummeling the First Lady has taken over the last three years, to note that no matter what she does, she can't win.

When she assumed a major policy role and sought to continue being the high-powered professional that she is, pundits blasted her for wearing the pants in the family and being an unelected, shadow President. When she says, "OK, I'll pretend that all I care about are children and household tips," she gets blasted for being a phony.

A different punditry, one less dedicated to sexist attacks on powerful women, might have a different take on the various evasions and corruptions known as "Whitewater."

The important story here, especially given the budget battles, is corporate welfare. Whatever the First Lady or the Rose Law Firm might have done illegally, the buckets of money such lawyers earn come from perfectly legal work--helping corporations avoid paying taxes and showing them how to get a firm grip on the government teat. Estimates vary widely about how much the government could save if it stopped subsidizing the tobacco and oil industries, Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (under investigation for price fixing), McDonald's ad campaigns in foreign countries, and the like, but figures range anywhere between $50 billion and $100 billion a year.

The problem isn't whether Hillary Clinton acts too much like a man, scares male underlings, or accidentally on purpose loses things.

The problem is that, just like her husband, she wants to have it both ways: talk like the champion of children in public, but in private preserve an economic system that keeps the fat cats fat while cutting the already minuscule amount of aid most poor children in this country get. So while the ongoing public drama starring Hillary Clinton, devil or angel, holds center stage, there is no media spotlight trained on what's backstage--corporations continuing to pig out, "budget crisis" and all, while the kids get the scraps on the floor. Some village.